Arch Linux

Hyugga

Member

From: Santiago, Chile

Registered: 2010-03-26

Posts: 335

Two questions: Compiz causes system to freeze and ati drivers

Hi everyone.
I have an ati integrated motherboard x1200 video card (r690 chipset), and of course arch64.
The first question:

When I activate compiz the system freezes randomly. I found an archwiki page where they put the following:

System freeze with ATI Express cardsI had to edit /etc/xorg.conf to avoid a system freeze with my PCI-Express ATI X700:

     Section "Device"
       Identifier  "AtiGraphicsCard"
       Driver      "fglrx"

       # I had to add these 2 options
       Option      "UseInternalAGPGART" "no"
       Option      "KernelModuleParm" "agplock=0"

       BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
     EndSection
I had to add those 2 Options to get it working properly. Other ATI PCI Express are reported to be affected too. (X200, X300, X600, X700, X1400... and possibly others)

I can't do that, because i don't have a xorg.conf file. The only way to change some parameters is with the driconf application, but i haven't found any documentation about those parameters...

And the second question: if i have an ati x1200 video card, which open source driver i have to install?
I have installed the xf86-video-ati. I wonder if that is the correct one.

Thanks.

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Two questions: Compiz causes system to freeze and ati drivers

xf86-video-ati is the correct package.

FYI the quote you included above refers to the closed-source fglrx driver. If you do settle on some parameters that work with radeon, you can put them in a minimal xorg.conf.

Hyugga

Member

From: Santiago, Chile

Registered: 2010-03-26

Posts: 335

Re: Two questions: Compiz causes system to freeze and ati drivers

Recently i saw how can i make a xorg.conf file just running Xorg -configure.
If i do this, can i change the parameters from there???
Thanks for the reply.

Hyugga

Member

From: Santiago, Chile

Registered: 2010-03-26

Posts: 335

Re: Two questions: Compiz causes system to freeze and ati drivers

I' ve been using my arch64 with compiz with the "indirect-rendering" option activated and there is no freezes for now.
So, what is indirect-rendering anyways? Some one can explain it to me?
Thanks for the reply.

Last edited by Hyugga (2010-06-01 05:23:12)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,296

Re: Two questions: Compiz causes system to freeze and ati drivers

I' ve been using my arch64 with compiz with the "indirect-rendering" option activated and there is no freezes for now.
So, what is indirect-rendering anyways? Some one can explain it to me?
Thanks for the reply.

Your system is doing all of the 3D rendering in software in your CPU rather than using the direct method of using the GPU in your video card.  It is  slow and makes the CPU bandwidth unavailable for other things.

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